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Axel Heiberg
“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.” -Axel Eodauga-Heiberg History Axel was the illegitimate child of the sorcerer Abi Eodauga and an elven woman, Gwynnestri. He was raised in a pitiful village in the Reich Nördlich, where he learned to hunt and forage from the rangers who served as father figures to him. His mother did not hide the story of his birth from him, and when Abi Eodauga became the Marshal of Nadezhda, she would tell her son that he was destined for great things. The war against the Windwalker was a harsh time for the Reich, and many young boys starved or froze. Curiously, young Axel survived the harshest conditions, seeming invulnerable to the elements, and always able to find food. It was not long before Gwynnestri identified the tell-tale signs of sorcery - Axel had inherited his father's wintry blood. No frost will harm him, and he had the ability to find life in the tundra, no matter how well-hidden. Terrified that the Hexenjägers would discover her son, Gwynnestri took him and fled to neighboring Nadezhda. Many times, she feared that he would succumb, but the cold fazed him not at all. Gwynnestri took Axel to the capital of Torzhestvo, where she presented the boy to his father, Marshal Abi Eodauga. The philosopher-king, who was at that time consolidating his power, found his son a great source of consternation. He had no interest in raising him, and had all but forgotten Gwynnestri. An idea - a brutal yet intriguing idea - was presented to him by his chief general, Dolom Tkerekin. At his general's urging, Abi Eodauga declared to his followers that no mage was exempt from the collars - not even his own son. Ignoring Gwynnestri's cries, Abi Eodauga latched the collar his Axel's neck himself, leaving enough room for him to grow, but not so much that he could lift it off. His decision was met with roars of approval, and all Nadezhdans knew that the Marshal's harsh justice would never be tempered by favoritism and sentimentality. Abi Eodauga concealed some things from the public, and from his son as well. The collar he had put on Axel's neck was broken, its magic faded, existing only for appearances sake. The Marshal would never go so far as to put his only son in danger. At his order, Gwynnestri was secretly married to one of a trusted officer in the Nadezhdan Armed Forces named Ulrik Heiberg, and sent to a small village in Nadezhda. Heiberg would protect Gwynnestri and raise Axel as his son. He would teach Axel mathematics and history, and how to read and write. He would keep and eye on the boy, and report back to the Marshal about his son's progress. Axel knew nothing of this, and harbored deep hatred for his adoptive father, who he saw as his jailer. He became a melancholy young man, living with the threat of death hanging over him. Deeply influenced by the rangers of his home village, Axel Heiberg chose to become an explorer, and when he reached the age of majority, his adoptive father let him go, as Abi Eodauga had ordered him to. In the years preceding the War of the Philosopher-Kings, Axel Heiberg went on a few expeditions with others, but eventually struck out on his own. His compatriots slowed him down, for he was obliged to hide his sorcerous powers from them. When he began exploring alone, he was free to master his powers in secret, talking to beasts and predicting the weather, shrugging off the elements and felling his prey with untapped arcane energies. He became the only man currently alive to reach the peak of Mt. Voormithadreth, and traveled further north still. He became the first human outside the Final Empire to set foot in the petrified forest of the Yuan-Ti that now bears his name. He spent a short time in the Northern Dome, where he met Emperor Brennen, before returning to Nadezhda. His reports about the northern Final Empire were some of the most detailed anyone had ever heard about Brennen's mysterious kingdom. Personality Axel Heiberg is consumed by restlessness, by a need to outrun his past and outrun death. He is remarkably fearless, and never stays in one place for terribly long. He has the habit of not telling anyone where he is going, and can disappear for months if not years on end. Years of wearing a Nadezhdan kill-collar have left him prepared to die at any moment, and he obsessively chronicles his explorations in case his own testimony is cut short. War of the Philosopher-Kings The War of the Philosopher-Kings was a fraught time for Axel Heiberg, who grew up in the Reich Nördlich yet had blood in Nadezhda. No matter how much he hated him, his adoptive father Ulrik was still on active duty in the Nadezhdan Armed Forces, and his true father was Nadezhda's leader. And yet some of the old rangers who taught him their ways were fighting in Franz Forrawyn's army; he would sooner die than raise a blade against them. Knowing that there might be those who would seek to use him as a hostage against his father, Axel Heiberg spent the war on the move in the wilderness, refusing to take part. The death of his father was a confusing and bitter time for Axel, and yet it raised further questions. He knew that all the Nadezhdan mages had been killed by Franz Forrawyn, and yet he still lived. It took some time for Axel to come to grips with the fact that his father had fitted him with a defective collar, and more time still for him to understand his father's motivations for treating him as he had. It was around this stage in his life that he began to occasionally use his father's name, but only in places where he would not be persecuted for witchcraft. After the War A known sorcerer and son of a slain philosopher-king, Axel Heiberg was wanted by the Hexenjägers, but he had little trouble evading them. He intended to live in and map the expanse of the former Final Empire, but was forced to retreat southward as the creeping madness of the Northern Dome spread its influence. He spent time in Rhomduil and in the former Empire of Celymnaia, and went as far south as World's End and Ragnarok, being careful never to overstay his welcome. At some point during this time, Axel encountered the ex-Hexenjäger and panserbjorne, Torvald Jonsson. Jonsson recognized him as a mage and tried to kill him, but after their fight, Axel emerged triumphant. He nonetheless spared his foe's life, seeing in him an exile's desperation. When they next crossed paths, Axel found Jonsson in grave danger and saved his life, a favor Jonsson was able to grudgingly repay years later. Axel Heiberg also came into conflict with Immanuel Kalbfleisch, at that time a Constable within the Hunter-Killer Auxiliary. Category:Wild Abyss Category:Mages Category:The Reich Category:Half-Elves